


stareater

by khirimochi (NekoAisu)



Series: posthumous [12]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Caretaking, Disabled Character, Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward, Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward Spoilers, Friends With Benefits, Gen, M/M, Magic, Major Character Injury, Medical Inaccuracies, Patch 3.0: Heavensward Spoilers, Permanent Injury, Physical Disability, Pining, Shock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:16:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25661221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NekoAisu/pseuds/khirimochi
Summary: It looks like a miniature sun, like there is a star residing within the confines of his chest, and the silver of the scar tissue spanning nearly a third of his chest is just that light leaking outward the only way it knows how.But to say Fahmi ate a star would be a lie. He did something far worse.
Relationships: Aymeric de Borel & Lucia goe Junius, Aymeric de Borel & Warrior of Light, Haurchefant Greystone & Warrior of Light, Haurchefant Greystone/Warrior of Light, Lucia goe Junius & Warrior of Light
Series: posthumous [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1266878
Comments: 16
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> HEED THE TAGS
> 
> Haurchefant Lives AU: But At What Cost edition

There are cracks in his shield. Fissures spread outward from a central point like he is bracing against magic with a pane of glass instead of his shield. 

He has seconds to think—to make a decision—and even less time to act. He cannot see past the starlike blue of Ser Zephirin’s spell, but he knows Aymeric and Lucia are not far. They need to succeed in escaping, if not eventually seek to foil Thordan’s plans. He can feel the Warrior of Light’s aether flare behind him when his shield wails loudly and begins to buckle. 

He makes his peace. 

But before he can come up with his last words, or a message he’d like given to Francel, he is shoved bodily out of the way. Then, there is a flash of pain, swift and terrible, before he lays witness to his friend (the adventurer of many titles) strain against the might of godly magics with staff in hand. 

His spells of protection shatter one after another until there is nothing but sheer willpower stopping the spear of light from connecting, but that, too, finds its end all too soon. His staff warps under the strain before snapping, the Focus rendered useless after channeling too much aether at once, and Haurchefant thinks that dying would be so much better than this. 

He wouldn’t have to watch yet another loved one slip from his grasp. He wouldn’t have to watch the spear strike true, piercing warded robes and body both to come streaking out the other side as if he is easy to tear apart. He wouldn’t have to realize that someone is screaming and that someone is  _ him.  _

_ “Fahmi!” _

There are hands on his shoulders and words being spoken but all he can see is the way the Keeper crumples to the stone below. He reaches forward, but finds one arm will not respond. Something is not quite right but he is too panicked to  _ care  _ and his friend is dying and Aymeric is talking at him and Lucia looks worried but most of all at  _ him  _ and none of this is  _ right— _

“Haurchefant, listen to me!”

He startles. His head throbs and he feels distinctly faint. “Lucia,” he gasps, “I can’t—“

“Breathe,” she orders in the same tone she uses when commanding troops. “You need to stay conscious.”

“He’s going to die,” he whispers, staring past her shoulders to the body lying prone on the ground. Fahmi does not move. There is no rise and fall to his chest. He does not wheeze or cry. 

Aymeric kneels at his side like he is attending to a worshiper needing succor (careful, genuine, with a bit too much nervousness to appear as untouchable as the other clergy). He grimaces at the sight that greets him, but wills his hands not to shake when he takes his pulse. 

Whatever he finds, it isn’t good. There is a paleness to his face that suggests terror more than the strain of his injuries when he turns to them and nods. At the very least, he was able to find a heartbeat. 

“Let me see him,” Haurchefant begs. “Let me  _ see him!  _ Please,  _ please _ … I need-I-I  _ need—“ _

“You will. You need to breathe for me, first.” Lucia does something with the hand on his shoulder and he feels  _ light.  _ He hasn’t been treated to a potable or Clemency, but that of a pain so intense he sees spots swim before his eyes. “Keep breathing,” she orders. “Let me wrap this and you can see him.”

He tries to obey, but his throat feels like the neck of a wine bottle. He cannot force air past the lump that has developed no matter how faint he has begun to feel. He doesn’t even register how Lucia said she had to wrap something of his. He hasn’t enough wits to figure out why his torso feels oddly uneven, lighter on one side, when Fahmi is  _ dying. _

Aymeric’s hands have lit up with a faint glow where they hover above what he can only  _ assume  _ is a gaping wound. His grasp on magic has never been particularly potent, but what Aymeric lacks in aptitude he makes up for in patience and training. The slow flow of soothing aether is a blessing where it fights past the volatile remnants of Ser Zephirin’s spell and begins to stay the flow of blood soaking into the adventurer’s robes. He’d been so excited about that coat earlier on in the week. Haurchefant hopes distantly that he won’t die in it. It wasn’t even his favorite. 

Lucia finishes whatever she was doing and helps him over like he is liable to pass out at the slightest provocation. He shuffles over on his knees before reaching out with his working arm and brushing his fingers gently against Fahmi’s cheek. 

His skin is superheated like the worst of spring fevers combined. There is a bluish cast to it, nearly like something has thrown him off balance and into Iceheart’s realm of ice and snow, but he finds it is receding the more aether Aymeric pours into his bones. There is the barest indication of breathing—stuttering, half inhales and shallow exhales like he has only half a lung left to use—that don’t even stir his clothing. 

He takes a moment to brace himself before looking at the wound. It feels strange to see it. That could have been him, a part of his brain says, and he shivers in reflexive pain. Seeing the remaining aether burning against his skin is like staring into the sun. When he blinks, he sees afterimages of a death he never wanted to imagine. 

“We need to get him inside the Vault,” Lucia advises, speaking more to Aymeric than Haurchefant. “That, or get a chirurgeon here immediately.”

“I… I know where the loyal ones would be. There were a select few that assisted me with… with  _ weathering  _ Ser Charibert’s questioning,” Aymeric mutters. He does not make to move and cease his healing. 

Lucia nods. “I will gather them and return post haste. The inquisition’s barracks, I take it?”

“The royal block. They all bear Her spear as rosaries.”

She spares all of a second to give the shallowest of bows before pivoting on her heel and taking off. The wait for her return is nearly more stressful than seeing Fahmi fall (slowly, with blood spilling from his mouth, staring out at some distant star). 

He does not manage to see it through before he becomes dreadfully tired. He does not even have time to yawn when, between one breath and the next, he succumbs to sleep. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Francel has an idea of how difficult it is to comfort a grieving man when the thing he cries over may not come to pass. 
> 
> That hope is so much worse to carry than outright death.

Waking is a slow and painful affair. He surfaces for a breath before sinking back under, slowly paddling his way to wakefulness one groggy moment at a time. He doesn’t really  _ want  _ to wake, not when his left arm aches like it got kicked by a chocobo, but there is something important he can’t quite remember. Someone  _ needed _ him. 

It takes him sticking his entire left leg out from underneath the blankets before he manages to stay awake long enough to yawn (and  _ ouch.  _ Jaws should not crack like that, last he had been informed). His toes are freezing within moments. 

There is light streaming in through the windows in familiar patterns. He recognizes it as the same ones as his room. He must be within House Fortemps and not Camp Dragonhead. 

What is he forgetting? Thinking makes his head hurt. Thoughts stick around or fade like ships in the night, most of the ones he catches being inconsequential (like how  _ famished  _ he is) but some feel almost important enough to be right. Aymeric was rescued, he remembers, and they made to stop Thordan before… before…

He can feel himself reach numbly to the left only to find nothing where there should be his entire  _ arm.  _

He looks down and has to blink a few times when he just sees an empty sleeve tied about where his elbow should be. The ache suddenly makes sense. 

He had lost it because his shield had shattered. What had come after that? Shouldn’t he be in Her halls with his many fallen brethren?

Shouldn’t he still be kneeling on marble and waiting for Lucia to come back, barely remembering to breathe as Aymeric pours magic from his fingertips into Fahmi’s veins because he was  _ dying.  _

And he’s probably dead, now. Haurchefant never got to say goodbye. He had succumbed to adrenaline and blood loss before Lucia had even stepped back outside. 

He had missed his chance to tell his friend (his inspiration, his light of hope, his  _ family)  _ that he can do it, that all he need do is hold tightly to life and they will handle the rest. He knows men resigned are impossible to save. 

Someone knocks on his door and somehow the sound makes him cry. He hadn’t realized how painfully  _ alone  _ he felt until hearing it. When Francel lets himself in, his usual hat held nervously in his hands rather than sitting atop his head, he tries to will away his tears. “My friend,” he croaks. “‘Tis good to see you.” The words are warped by the weight in his chest and the lump in his throat. 

“Haurchefant,” he says in a voice barely above a whisper. “Oh,  _ oh— _ you’re awake! We’ve been so worried when you continued to slumber despite the chirurgeon’s best efforts. How are you feeling? Do you have need of anything?”

“Is he alive?” 

Francel makes a face. It’s not one Haurchefant has even seen him make before, not in all their years as friends and chosen family. He opens his mouth and tries for words before closing it and clearing his throat. He tries again. 

“Ser Fahmi is… in a state. He is not fit for visitors, nor has he awoken. House Borel has been forthcoming on his condition, but all we can do as of the past few days is  _ wait.” _

A sob spills from his throat, harsh and crackling, and he feels so terribly guilty that  _ he  _ is not the one near to death. It is his duty to fight as Her sword and to protect others as Her shield. He had promised his father that he would not falter, that his shield would not break, but there is a warped plate of metal sitting atop his vanity that he recognizes as the remains of his failure. 

He had faced a trial and managed to see it through by the sacrifice of another. He feels like a fraud.

“I need to see him,” he manages between stuttering breaths. He scrubs at his cheeks with his hand and blinks furiously in an attempt to clear his vision of tears and the vestiges of fresh trauma. 

His friend approaches his bedside slowly, as if trying to soothe a spooked chocobo, and sits down atop the comforters and quilts with care to not accidentally make a seat of his legs. He takes his hand in his and gently squeezes. “I cannot,” he replies, ears drooping. “Ser Aymeric said he is too unstable to be seen by visitors. The wound—it isn’t… it was able to be healed, but not without consequence. There are certain things he may not make it through, even should he wake.”

“Francel, please… grant me this one thing. I will never ask anything of you again. I will live the life of an ascetic for the rest of my days just to see him breathing.”

“Haurchefant,  _ please,”  _ he parrots, not at all unkindly. “I wish I could. I pray so ardently that She will shepherd him back to us and not into Her halls. It is because of this that I cannot allow you to endanger yourself—“

“I am  _ supposed  _ to be dead!” he snaps. 

Francel startles, his entire body going stiff before he asks, “Is that what you wanted?”

“No,” he says, “but if it allowed another to live, I would accept it with grace.”

They lapse into unhappy silence. He picks at the stitching of his blankets. 

Francel inhales sharply before sighing. “I cannot find the words I so dearly need. Forgive me.”

“What is there to forgive?” He replies, forcing himself to smile. “Your presence alone is soothing. I am all the better for it.”

“You do not need to be so strong. There is naught but us in this room and the halls have been quiet since you… since the Vault.”

His smile falters, cracking under the strain of his anxieties, and he asks, quiet and heartbroken, “May I see him, once he wakes?”

“Of course,” Francel replies, heart shattering to pieces at his best friend’s distress. “I am sure he would like nothing more.”

**Author's Note:**

> Am i about to project some of my own experiences with sudden chronic illness and disability on a 5 foot tall catboy? Yes.
> 
> hmu on:  
> Twitter [@khirimochi](https://twitter.com/khirimochi) OR [@TheHolyBody (NSFW)](https://twitter.com/TheHolyBody)  
> Tunglr @[Main](https://kiriami.tumblr.com) OR @[FFXIV Imagines](https://ffxivimagines.tumblr.com)


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